Trial by Blood

by John Macken

  The Volvo D90 sped through a junction, joined a wider carriageway, negotiated a couple of roundabouts, cruised along an overpass in a built-up area, and merged effortlessly into the fast lane of the motorway. They passed knots of traffic, coagulated around slow, sticky lorries. Inside, the car was silent. From time to time DS Kyriacou licked his lips, a quick flick of the tongue, out and in. Reuben noted its sharpness, pointed and triangular, a dry pinkness to it.

  Gradually, tarmac and concrete became trees and grass. Reuben stared out of the window, his breath on the glass. Most of life, he appreciated, we don’t know the truth. We think we do, but we don’t. And when something startling happens, that’s the reason it hits us so hard. Because it is a yes or no, a black or white, a definitive certainty. And those moments are rare. Reuben’s guts rumbled like thunder. He knew that a lot of his convictions about his existence were about to be challenged.

  Before long they were driving on a bumpy stone surface bordered by tall hedges, and then they emerged into a clearing. DS Kyriacou skidded the car to a halt, tyres slewing across gravel. The three senior officers climbed out. Commander Abner opened Reuben’s door and pointed with the gun. A few metres ahead lay a small concrete outbuilding, windowless and solid, with a rusted metal door. Reuben was escorted towards it. Robert Abner stopped just in front of the door and turned to him.

  ‘Before you go in, I want you to think about something, Reuben. You know how leukaemia works. Your son has a cancer deep in his bones which is eating his immune system as we speak. Chomp. There goes another white blood cell. Munch. There goes another macrophage. Not that a toddler has much of an immune system to start with. You’re the only person who can help your son now. And yet, and yet . . .’

  Commander Abner ushered him forward with the gun.

  ‘When he has succumbed to the cancer in his bones, we’ll be back for you. You will die in the knowledge that you failed to save your only flesh and blood. We’ll be monitoring Joshua’s lack of progress keenly.’

  ‘You sent me the notes, didn’t you?’

  ‘What notes?’

  ‘About Michael Brawn. So you could get to him.’

  ‘Way off beam.’ Abner looked confused, his brow ruffled for a second. ‘I’m the last person who would have sent you after Mr Brawn.’

  ‘Then why kill him?’

  ‘Do you think a man like Michael Brawn deserves to walk the streets?’

  Reuben was consumed with questions, but he knew that Abner would tolerate his curiosity only so far.

  ‘And, shit. It was you who forced me out of GeneCrime. Not Phil Kemp, not anyone else. It was you.’

  ‘Nudged, Reuben, not forced. You made yourself vulnerable. And when you do that, you deserve all you get.’ Abner flushed, losing patience. ‘Now, inside. It’s time to face your own personal hell.’

  Reuben turned away from Commander Abner. A kick from one of the senior officers plunged him into the darkness. Off balance, he fell to his knees. The door slammed shut and a key turned. A shaft of light poked between the roof and the top of the walls. There was a damp, human smell that Reuben didn’t want to think about. Feet crunched over the gravel and car doors slammed. The large unmarked Volvo pulled away, kicking up stones.

  Reuben got to his feet and rushed at the door, shoulder-first. It didn’t budge. Leaning against it, he saw Joshua, pasty and listless, his eyes closed, eyelids so pale that a multitude of tiny blood vessels showed through. A rapid and insubstantial heartbeat leaving a faint green trace on a monitor. A nurse replacing the saline bag feeding his cannula. He saw days of confinement, of isolation, of helplessness and starvation. He knew that he had fucked everything up and that there was no way of fixing it.

  Reuben pounded the door, over and over, slamming his fists into it, possessed and crazed, imprisoned again, the words of Robert Abner echoing in the din, knowing that he had it right.

  This was his own personal hell.

  11

  The Thames Rapist. Who the hell had christened him that? Judith wondered, head squeezed tight inside her helmet. Rapist implied sex and nothing else. This was a killer, pure and simple. She zipped up her jacket and pulled on her gloves. The rape seemed to Judith almost incidental – a violent act among other more violent acts.

  She pictured Commander Robert Abner writing names on a whiteboard, his crony Charlie Baker nodding his hairy face, or shaking his bearded chops. The still air, the squeak of marker pen cutting right through them. The Riverbank Murderer. The Thames Killer. The Riverbank Rapist. Give him a name, a tag for the papers. Something catchy, something that will lodge in people’s minds. A moniker that tells a story all by itself. She thought of the pride involved in being the one to name the serial killer, to attach a sobriquet which would burn bright long after the details of the crimes or the victims’ names had faded into obscurity. The Yorkshire Ripper. The M69 Rapist. The Boston Strangler.

  Judith blew air out of the side of her mouth, feeling it warm the foam interior of her helmet. Abner had stuck to the rules. First the geographical location, then the act. The killer had been christened, and now he was more than just a man: he was a public figure, with an appended personality, a household name. Finally, he existed. But still it rankled with her that the word ‘rapist’ had been chosen, as if rape was somehow more serious than having your windpipe crushed or your neck broken or your ribs snapped.

  Judith pressed the start button on her scooter, the small engine catching first time. She remembered how, a few days before, Charlie Baker had approached her in the car park, asking her about Reuben and Moray. Something about him that always suggested more, his words only half of the meaning. Like there were two messages, one verbal, the other secreted in his tone, or in his body language, or in the way he looked at you.

  Judith climbed on, revved hard and pulled off, the scooter almost sliding from under her. She was tired, her eyes blurred, her hands aching against the vibration of the handlebars. They were closing in, that’s what she heard more and more. But Judith knew the final couple of pieces of evidence were still not there. Hundreds of potential suspects, but nothing to separate them. Vague vehicle makes, conflicting witness statements, poor physical descriptions, scant forensics. Without a positive DNA they were drowning in circumstantial quicksand. And despite double shifts and extra personnel, GeneCrime, the country’s leading forensics unit, was basically going nowhere.

  Judith swung out of the car park and down the long straight ramp, letting the engine hold her speed back. That was the problem with forensics. You could be as advanced as you wanted but if your killer knew what he was doing, or had some basic knowledge of science or police procedure, you were in trouble. Test after test was coming back negative, or unreadable, or outside the confidence intervals. Stretching the limits of detection to the point where they became inaccurate or unrepeatable. False positives, potential breakthroughs which couldn’t be corroborated. It was hell. Mina Ali barking orders, feeling the strain. Bernie Harrison, Simon Jankowski and the others coming up with ideas, new approaches and incisive strategies, but no tangible data. The first body proving difficult, DNA possibly there, but of low quality and partially degraded. Reuben’s suggestions helping, although the raw material remaining elusive in terms of progress. A whole unit tearing its hair out as women were raped and murdered and dumped in the river. Maybe Reuben was right after all. Maybe the killer had protection from within.

  The air that penetrated the gap in her visor was cool and refreshing. At least it was real air, not the filtered, sterilized and recirculated version which permeated the laboratories of GeneCrime. Judith stopped at some traffic lights and raised her visor, breathing it in. There was no other traffic, sensible people in normal jobs having long since turned out their bedroom lights and drifted off to sleep.

  The image caught Judith for a second as the red light burned into her. Colm would be asleep, spread across most of the bed, maybe snoring quietly to himself. He was still acting strangely, and Judith found the thought
of not having to talk to him when she got home a positive one. Surely pregnancy was something that most men dealt with better than this. She sighed. And with the thought of her husband, and the red light pointlessly barring her progress to an empty road, Judith also thought briefly of Reuben. He had failed to return her last three calls. This was unusual. He was generally the sort of person who got back to you no matter what. Even in prison.

  Judith revved the engine, hoping to wake the light up. Really, she should just jump it, but she had always felt—

  Blackness. A ripping, tearing feeling. Off the scooter, the bike crashing to the ground. Being dragged head first. Arms and legs failing to grip anything. Shoes and gloves bouncing along the tarmac. Muffled noises through her helmet. A defeating strength. Scuffing along and then stopping. Silence. Fear kicking in. A slow realization. This is him. The man Abner christened the Thames Rapist. Photos in operations rooms. Dark strangulation marks. Brooding organ damage. Sick stomach contents. Fractured X-rays of broken ribs. She knows she is next.

  A heaviness, dragging her down. Cold concrete through her tights. Pushed into the ground. An unbelievable pressure. A hand clamping around her throat. Two deaths, she realizes. One adult, one fetal. Everything quiet and stifled, her helmet covered with something. An incredible pain in the front of her neck. Helplessly crushed. Breathing stopping. The pain intensifying, the pressure clamping harder. Going. Not gently but violently. Smothered. An insect squashed. Pressed into the ground. Life squeezed away. An unanswerable force. The end of everything. Two lives slipping away . . .

  12

  Two metres by three metres. Barely room to lie down. Pacing back and forth through the pitch darkness. Stopping every now and then to attack the concrete. Intense and frenzied bursts of activity. A small silver coin scratching at the wall. Short, concentrated movements, side to side. Fingers bleeding, multiple grazes and cuts from the rough, sharp surface. Knuckles and fingertips stinging with the blood and the contact. Pausing to wipe the fluid away before beginning again.

  The smell intensifying. Human and sour. Evidence that someone has been here before, locked up, isolated, for long periods of time. The stench of suffering. Not death, necessarily. Not the reeking fleshy nausea of corpses or rotting body parts. More a sharp acrid scent of wasting away, of fear or of torture. Instinctive odours that track you down and tell you a story you don’t want to hear. But something else in there as well. Another bitterness that lies silently in the darkness, waiting.

  Feeling into the concrete, suspecting that it is hardened or reinforced. The coin making little difference, its edge flattened and becoming blunter. Continuing anyway, faster and with more force, knowing there is no other option. The floor is made from the same material, the ceiling also, the door utterly unmovable, with no handle or lock on the inside. A hollow concrete block with no obvious way out.

  Slumping down on the ground, head in hands, the coin hot from the friction. Sucking at bleeding fingers, the sweet iron taste flooding in. Thinking and trying not to think. A world turned upside down. Events escalating beyond control. A son in trouble, a dead man in the lab, a senior policeman tying up all the loose ends. Breaking into prison and breaking out. And now locked up for good.

  Attacking the wall again. The same place, a hand’s width from the door hinge. Grunting and crying out with the effort and the pain. Skinning fingers, shredding nails. Feeling into the shallow gouge and knowing that it isn’t working. But trying all the same. Refusing to quit or acknowledge the terrible possibilities. Just scratching and scraping and digging with utter desperation.

  Stopping mid-stroke, breathing deep, lungs working hard. Suddenly understanding what the smell is. Not just urine or sweat or human terror, also something inorganic. A fluid from a laboratory hovering in the mix. A heavy, vaporous gas, hanging low, near the floor. Bending down and sniffing, mentally flicking through solutions and reagents. Alcohols, esters, phenols, hydrocarbons, acids, solvents, bases . . . an acid. A thick, noxious, stomach-churning acid. Getting closer to the floor, the sense of smell fatiguing, but knowing it is still there, hiding in the damp, pungent stench. The pitch blackness making the odours come alive, pure and undiluted by other sensory distractions.

  Acetic, nitric, boric . . . sulphuric. A light bulb of recognition. Sulphuric acid. Concentrated sulphuric acid. Slightly yellowy, a whiff of vapour around the mouth of an open bottle, always attacking the air that dares come near it. Images of flesh and bones and clothes being sucked into the fluid and dissolved molecule by molecule, devoured and liquefied, melting into the hungry acid. And among the visions, a haze of questions. Who is next? Michael Brawn? Or simply anyone who stands in the way? What of, though? What do senior CID want? What are they after? What does Abner need? Who else has he brought here? Who has been liquefied on this very floor?

  Standing up again, away from the floor, away from the horror, still gripping the coin. Feeling for the superficial hollow in the wall. Pushing the coin in and starting again, faster, more desperate, knowing that an appalling and sickening death is the only other option, darkness closing in around, the blackness stripping every fibre of hope like acid.

  13

  She grabs at the plastic and pulls. It stretches and tears, streetlights spilling in through the hole. As she drags it away from her helmet, she sees that it is a black bin bag. She scrambles to her feet, panting, breathing through desperate lungs. She coughs hard, a dry, uncomfortable hack which won’t go away. Bent double for a second, unsteady.

  He is just standing there. Looking almost confused. Vacant and staring.

  Sense returns to her. A stark clarity kicks in. She turns and sprints. Out of the walled car park, into the street. Her scooter is still ticking over. On its side, the handlebars twisted. She glances around. The roads are empty. Don’t panic, she says. Decide. Quick. The long ramp up into GeneCrime. A street of metal shuttered windows. Vacant pavements. He is frozen. Still in the car park. Staring into the ground. Close to the only car in there. She has time. She grabs the handlebars and pulls. The scooter lifts up and drops again. It is very heavy, unexpectedly awkward. She tries again, getting lower, her back straight. It slides a few inches across the tarmac.

  She looks up. He is shaking his head, rubbing his eyes through the gap in his balaclava. It is too dark to see him well. She curses. This is him. A positive ID, a clear description, and they will take a massive step forward. But all she can see is a shadowy form in baggy clothing with a balaclava over his head and white latex gloves. There is one detail, however. Light blue shoe covers. Used by forensic teams for contamination avoidance. The sort Judith wears half of every day.

  Judith knows that her mobile is switched off, zipped into a pocket of her jacket, senses that there wouldn’t be time. She crouches down, trying to push the handlebars up. She keeps her back straight and uses everything she has. The fast pulse, the rapid circulation, the glut of adrenalin sluicing through her body, all of it straining and wrenching, desperate to get the scooter up. Slowly rising, inch by inch, righting the machine in a gradual, controlled movement.

  Behind the bike, she sees his body shape change. He is looking around, alert, back in the present. Judith tries to put it all together. He must have come up behind her, placed a bin bag over her head and dragged her into the car park. Then the crushing weight, the strangulation. He must have known that she was working late. He was waiting for her. Forensic scientists in murder hunts don’t accidentally become victims. She coughs again, uncontrolled, her throat tight and sore, her breathing still laboured. A revelation: this is someone she has encountered before, or is even acquainted with. Accepting it is not random, it follows that he must know her. A name flashes through her mind like a neon light.

  He is coming. Slowly at first, but now fifty metres away. Not running, just pacing. Leaning slightly forward, aiming directly at her. Large strides full of intent. Judith pushes with everything she has. The scooter is almost upright, but still as heavy as hell. She shifts her grip. The engine c
ontinues to tick over, oblivious. She is pulling it up now, rather than pushing. He is twenty metres away. She can see him more clearly, but doesn’t recognize him.

  As she puts her leg across the scooter, he starts to run. Powerful and quick. Nearly upon her. She opens the throttle. The bike lurches forward, not quite vertical. It takes off in an arc, passing close. He grabs for her but misses. Judith leans against the pull and gets it up. She ploughs through the intersection, starting to gain control. Swivelling her head, she sees he is running after her. Sprinting across the road. The scooter gathers speed and she knows she is safe. Both of her.

  She twists the throttle as far as it will go, the engine whining and complaining, and looks back. He is giving up, slowing down. She unzips her mobile from her pocket as she rides. When she is far enough away, when she has stopped coughing, and when she knows she can speak, she will turn it on and dial 999.

  There is still a chance that they can catch him.

  14

  The Operations Room clock read 9.15, slender black hands lying prone across its centre, cutting the steel face in two. Commander Robert Abner monitored it for a second in silence, waiting for the stubborn hands to move. Out of habit, he glanced at his watch, and noted that its hands were horizontal as well. He sighed and ran his eyes slowly around the Operations Room table, naming names. Sarah Hirst. Charlie Baker. Mina Ali. Bernie Harrison. Helen Alders. An assistant pathologist whose surname he didn’t know. Generally, he kept the hell away from operational meetings if he could help it. From now on, though, it was in his interest to know what was going on the second it happened.

  Sarah Hirst cleared her throat, the usual signal she was about to say something he didn’t want to hear.